Ayn Rand-loving CEO destroys his empire

[GMDino]

Wow. So being greedy and selfish is NOT the way to run a company?



http://www.salon.com/2013/12/10/ayn_rand_loving_ceo_destroys_his_empire_partner/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Quote:Once upon a time, hedge fund manager Eddie Lampert was living a Wall Street fairy tale. His fairy godmother was Ayn Rand, the dashing diva of free-market ideology whose quirky economic notions would transform him into a glamorous business hero.

For a while, it seemed to work like a charm. Pundits called him the “Steve Jobs of the investment world.” The new Warren Buffett. By 2006 he was flying high, the richest man in Connecticut, managing over $15 billion thorough his hedge fund, ESL Investments.

Stoked by his Wall Street success, Lampert plunged headlong into the retail world. Undaunted by his lack of industry experience and hailed a genius, Lampert boldly pushed to merge Kmart and Sears with a layoff and cost-cutting strategy that would, he promised, send profits into the stratosphere. Meanwhile the hotshot threw cash around like an oil sheikh, buying a $40 million pad in Florida’s Biscayne Bay, a record even for that star-studded county.

Fast-forward to 2013: The fairy tale has become a nightmare.

Lampert is now known as one of the worst CEOs in America — the man who flushed Sears down the toilet with his demented management style and harebrained approach to retail. Sears stock is tanking. His hedge fun is down 40 percent, and the business press has turned from praising Lampert’s genius towatching gleefully as his ship sinks. Investors are running from “Crazy Eddie” like the plague.

That’s what happens when Ayn Rand is the basis for your business plan.

Crazy Eddie has been one of America’s most vocal advocates of discredited free-market economics, so obsessed with Ayn Rand he could rattle off memorized passages of her novels. As Mina Kimes explained in a fascinating profile in Bloomberg Businessweek, Lampert took the myth that humans perform best when acting selfishly as gospel, pitting Sears company managers against each other in a kind of Lord of the Flies death match. This, he believed, would cause them to act rationally and boost performance.

If you think that sounds batshit crazy, congratulations. You understand more than most of America’s business school graduates.

Instead of enhancing Sears’ bottom line, the heads of various divisions began to undermine each other and fight tooth and claw for the profits of their individual fiefdoms at the expense of the overall brand. By this time Crazy Eddie was completely in thrall to his own bloated ego, and fancied he could bend underlings to his will by putting them through humiliating rituals, like annual conference calls in which unit managers were forced to bow and scrape for money and resources. But the chaos only grew.

Lampert took to hiding behind a pen name and spying on and goading employees through an internal social network. He became obsessed with technology, wasting resources on developing apps as Sears’ physical stores became dilapidated and filthy. Instead of investing in workers and developing useful products, he sold off valuable real estate, shuttered stores, and engineered stock buybacks in order to manipulate stock prices and line his own pockets.



Eddie’s crazy didn’t stop there. As a Wall Street creature fantastically out of touch with the kind of ordinary folks who shop at Sears, he inserted his love of luxury into the mix, trying to sell Rolex watches and $4,400 designer handbagsthrough America’s iconic budget-friendly brand.

As his company was descending into Randian mayhem, Lampert continued to cheerfully inform stockholders that his revolutionary ideas would soon produce earth-shattering results. Reality: Sears has lost half its value in five years. Since 2010, Sears has closed more than half of its stores. Sears Holdings is financially distressed and Lampert’s own hedge fund has reduced its stake in the company. The Sears store in Oakland, California, open for business with boarded-up windows, has even been cited for urban blight.

Truth be told, hedge fund honchos have had little to fear from royally screwing companies. Bank accounts fattened at the expense of workers and other stakeholders, they go on their merry way to mess up something else. But the epic incompetence of guys like Lampert may be dispelling the myth that financiers are the smartest guys in the room. Research suggests that not only do hedge fund managers typically understand squat about running a company, they’re often not much good at beating the stock market, either. A recent Bloomberg article points out that in 2013, hedge funds returned 7.1 percent. That doesn’t sound so bad, until you consider that if you had just stuck your money in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index you would have seen returns of 29.1 percent. Big difference!



While Lampert was caught up in Randian delusions of crass materialism and cut-throat capitalism, he failed to realize that a business is an experience as much communal as it is individual. Employees are not just competitive beings — they benefit from cooperating with each other and perform better when they are respected, rather than beaten down and driven by fear.

Slowly but surely, Ayn Rand’s economic theories are being discarded because they simply don’t add up in the real world. Even Rand acolyte Paul Ryan (R-Wis) is now distancing himself, calling his well-documented enthusiasm an “urban legend.”

Lampert created a business model predicated on the notion that the invisible hand of the market would magically drive stellar results. With his belief in economic fairy tales, he managed to kill the goose that laid his own golden egg.

Looks like the invisible hand just waved goodbye to Eddie Lampert.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

Simon Sinek's Why Leaders Eat Last

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReRcHdeUG9Y

It's fascinating, but at 45 minutes long too much of an investment for most (around here.)

[Rotobeast]

I'll tell you how bad Sears has gotten.
I went down to pay a bill at the local store and had the store manager licking my boots.
They had asked it I was looking to buy anything in particular and I stated I'd buy anything if the price was right, because my rental units can always stand to upgrade.
Next thing you know I'm getting a manager-guided tour through the warehouse.
Mind you, I find this especially amusing as I'm nobody special and just dress in Harley t-shirts & jeans.

[StLucieBengal]

(10-24-2015, 11:23 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Simon Sinek's Why Leaders Eat Last

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReRcHdeUG9Y

It's fascinating, but at 45 minutes long too much of an investment for most (around here.)

Love Simon Sinek.  Read that book last year.

The 45 minutes is so worth it.... Anyone who skips it is really missing out.

The energy bus is another good book on this topic. By jon Gordon. http://www.amazon.com/The-Energy-Bus-Rules-Positive/dp/0470100281

[JustWinBaby]

To be fair, that company would have been dead years ago if not for him.

So he's not Jack Welch....but it's not like he's holding Sear's back. Good lord, why would you buy anything from them but power tools, garden furniture and mattresses?

[BmorePat87]

(10-25-2015, 05:54 AM)JustWinBaby Wrote: To be fair, that company would have been dead years ago if not for him.

So he's not Jack Welch....but it's not like he's holding Sear's back.  Good lord, why would you buy anything from them but power tools, garden furniture and mattresses?

Much like Best Buy, they cannot compete in an online world. With more and more Amazon shipping centers popping up, and near features like same day deliveries, why go to Best Buy or Sears to pay more and have a pushy sales person follow you around?

[SunsetBengal]

(10-25-2015, 09:46 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Much like Best Buy, they cannot compete in an online world. With more and more Amazon shipping centers popping up, and near features like same day deliveries, why go to Best Buy or Sears to pay more and have a pushy sales person follow you around?

I recently needed a lamp for our older, projection big screen.  Best I could find it for on Amazon was over $53, plus tax/shipping.  My Dad, who gave us this TV, suggested checking with Sears before purchasing through Amazon.  Glad that I took his advice.  Sears had the part, and total bill with tax and shipping was $32 and change.

[Benton]

(10-25-2015, 10:32 AM)SunsetBengal Wrote: I recently needed a lamp for our older, projection big screen.  Best I could find it for on Amazon was over $53, plus tax/shipping.  My Dad, who gave us this TV, suggested checking with Sears before purchasing through Amazon.  Glad that I took his advice.  Sears had the part, and total bill with tax and shipping was $32 and change.

Same thing happened to me with an oven part years ago. Amazon had the part. The manufacturer had the part. Sears had the part and was cheaper than the other two. Of course, I had to drive 20 miles to my nearest store, but it worked out.

Unfortunately I'm completely non mechanical and bought the wrong part. But that wasn't Sears' fault.

[SunsetBengal]

(10-25-2015, 10:51 AM)Benton Wrote: Same thing happened to me with an oven part years ago. Amazon had the part. The manufacturer had the part. Sears had the part and was cheaper than the other two. Of course, I had to drive 20 miles to my nearest store, but it worked out.

Unfortunately I'm completely non mechanical and bought the wrong part. But that wasn't Sears' fault.

In my case, I called the local Sears and was told that I had to order it online.  It arrived in 3 business days.

[fredtoast]

"While Lampert was caught up in Randian delusions of crass materialism and cut-throat capitalism, he failed to realize that a business is an experience as much communal as it is individual. Employees are not just competitive beings — they benefit from cooperating with each other and perform better when they are respected, rather than beaten down and driven by fear.

Slowly but surely, Ayn Rand’s economic theories are being discarded because they simply don’t add up in the real world. Even Rand acolyte Paul Ryan (R-Wis) is now distancing himself, calling his well-documented enthusiasm an “urban legend.”

Lampert created a business model predicated on the notion that the invisible hand of the market would magically drive stellar results. With his belief in economic fairy tales, he managed to kill the goose that laid his own golden egg."



While this is all true I think it misses the real problem with Rand's theories. For years I kind of agreed with Alan Greenspan's theory that businesses would make decisions based on surviving instead of just making immediate profit. But the way it works now CEO's just jump from company to company making decisions that value immediate, short-term profitability over the long term survival of the company or even on the market in which it functions.

The finance industry did not care that they were creating an unrealistic real estate bubble in the mid '90's because they were all getting rich.

Even today when interest rates are near record lows corporations are not using this access to capital for research and development or expanding their businesses. Instead they are using it for massive stock buy backs that pump increase value with out really increasing production. That's why the stock market is near record highs yet there have been very few good jobs created.

I have repeated many times that we need to work in a capitalist economy. Capitalism drives innovation and efficiency. But unregulated capitalism is an ugly monster that will eat itself in the name of profit. That is why it is so important to have strong government regulation.

[JustWinBaby]

(10-25-2015, 01:42 PM)fredtoast Wrote: That is why it is so important to have strong government regulation.

Right.  Because what's really holding back our economy is not enough regulation.

[SunsetBengal]

(10-25-2015, 05:29 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: Right.  Because what's really holding back our economy is not enough regulation.

Exactly.  Because by allowing bloated financial and corporate entities to fail would only result in a boon for smaller and mid sized companies and financial institutions.  In my mind, bailing out crippled corporate giants is akin to giving an alcoholic a credit account at the local liquor store.

[fredtoast]

(10-25-2015, 05:29 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: Right.  Because what's really holding back our economy is not enough regulation.

Thank goodness someone else understands.  Lack of government regulation crippled our economy, and we still have not fully recovered.

The lack of government regulations on credit default swaps was one of the main reasons our economy collapsed in 2008.

We have to get the markets under some control if we want our economy to flourish on a consistent basis.

[fredtoast]

(10-25-2015, 06:25 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Exactly.  Because by allowing bloated financial and corporate entities to fail would only result in a boon for smaller and mid sized companies and financial institutions.  In my mind, bailing out crippled corporate giants is akin to giving an alcoholic a credit account at the local liquor store.

This is pretty naive, and a perfect example of the fairy tales that Ayn Rand fans would spew.   If a large corporation fails then another large corporation picks up the slack.  New entrants generally can not compete against established market shares.  For example, if we had let GM fail then foreign automakers who already lead the market would have picked up most of the business.  At a time when credit was impossible to get there was no way another new company was going to rise up and take GMs place.

And with the lending industry we had to bail them out to keep the economy from crashing.  And the only way to avoid having to do that again is MORE GOVERNMENT REGULATION.  They are not going to do it themselves.  the new corporate model is to maximize instant short term profits even if it means destroying the entire industry.